January 31, 2018

In 2017, the CFS Ontario, delegates voted in favour of an Ontario Day of Action on February 1st, 2018 with free education as one of the main demands. After the positive experience of the November 2nd, 2016 Pan-Canadian Day of Action, which mobilised 56 campuses in 38 cities, the YCL-LJC welcomed the mobilisation for an Ontario Day of Action.

"Considering the increasingly difficult situation for students in Canada and in Ontario, we thought it was important for us, young communists, to actively participate and mobilise for this Day of Action and focus on the need to organise and fight for free education, which we see as the first priority and uniting demand for the student movement", says Peter Miller, Chair of the Student Commission of the YCL-LJC.

November 7, 2017

One hundred years ago, on February 23rd 1917, 50,000 women poured out of factories and onto the streets, sparking the revolution in Russia that eventually led to the downfall of the Tsar. It was on International Women’s Day that textile workers organized a strike with a strong anti-war message to condemn the exploitative and oppressive conditions most people were subjected to during the Tsar era.

This movement not only brought women together, but also masses of people who simply called for bread and peace. It became the catalyst for one of most historical revolutions in the impact it had on changing the world. However, the role of women during the Russian Revolution, and the years following, is often erased by bourgeois historians who tend to frame the revolution as a ‘masculine’ movement. Some historians, such as Richard Piper, even go so far as to argue that the revolution was “a coup” by a small number of radical, male intellectuals, rather than it being a mass working class movement. This is because bourgeois historians do not focus and emphasize that the working class had been organizing for many years, demanding that they have basic rights.

November 6, 2017

In the framework of the 19th World Festival of Youth and Students, 36 communist youth organisations from all across the world gathered in the « Lenin » Conference Hall to honour the 100th aniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution and its achievements in favour of the working class, the youth and popular masses everywhere, in socialist countries, but also in capitalist countries. From India to Guatemala, from Colombia to Austria, the room was heavy packed by hundreds of young people who commit to follow the path opened by the October Revolution one hundred years ago.

November 3, 2017

Just two years after the Liberal party government of Pierre Trudeaudecriminalized homosexuality in 1969, a small band of brave gay men cametogether to launch the Gay Alliance Towards Equality (GATE) in Vancouver. From 1971 to 1980, the group campaigned to foster understanding andacceptance of gays and lesbians during a period of universal hatred for sexualminorities. Don Hann, a former GATE activist from that period, talked to Rebel Youth recently about the struggle for gay rights during the 1970s.

August 8, 2017

On July 28th, 2017, members of London's Black LGBTQ2SIA community announced they would not be marching in Pride London this year due to safety concerns over Pride London’s policy of the inclusion of armed and uniformed police officers in the parade.

Last year, Ryan Robinson marched alongside the Pride Men's Chorus when he was approached by an armed police officer. "It was a friendly greeting but I was on edge," he said. "Most times, when officers approach me it's not a friendly situation." Rowa Mohamed, a previous member of Pride London’s organizing committee, has also pulled out for these reasons. Mohamed said it is time for London to take an active approach toward solidarity by excluding uniformed police, who have a history of oppressive behaviour toward racialized communities. "When we accept police into Pride, we accept the history of violence of police oppression and we compromise the safety of already marginalized people," she said. "I feel that we don't belong at Pride and that our suffering is never going to be prioritized over the symbolic presence and empty solidarity of police being present at Pride.”

May 5, 2017

Tyson Strandlund is the Communist Party of BC’s candidate in the upcoming election in Esquimalt-Metchosin, British Columbia. The riding is located close to Victoria on Vancouver Island.

Tyson is also the organizer of the Young Communist League – Victoria club. He is a student at University of Victoria and a musician. He has organised students around the demand for free universal post-secondary education, such as during last November's pan-Canadian student rallies. Tyson is Métis, and is a fierce advocate of decolonisation and the rights of Indigenous peoples.

April 29, 2017

On April 23rd, the French people were called to chose two out of the eleven candidates running for the Presidential elections who would make their way to the second round and aspire to be the next tenant of the Élysée palace.

In France, the first round for Presidential elections has never been a moment of great suspense. For decades, the two main political parties, the Socialists (PS) and the right (Les républicains and, formerly, the UMP or RPR) usually get to the second round with a comfortable margin. Polling institutions have an easy job in predicting who the two aspiring presidents will be. However, this year, until the last minute, four candidates were polling at around 20% in the first round, namely Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Marine Le Pen, François Fillion and Emmanuel Macron.

April 18, 2017

On April 2nd 2017 the political landscape of Ecuador was shaken as Lenín Moreno was named President-Elect of Ecuador. Moreno garnered 51.16 percent of valid votes while opposition and ex-banker Guillermo Lasso garnered 48.84 percent, with 99.65 percent of votes counted, National Electoral Council President Juan Pablo Pozo said at a press conference. Due to Moreno’s victory, right-wing reactionary groups rioted in the streets. Lasso made fraudulent claims that the election was rigged and asked his supporters to riot in the streets demanding a recount. All this, despite the fact that Organization of American States election observers found "no discrepancies between the observed records and the official data" from the National Electoral Council.

April 10, 2017

On Tuesday, April 11th, at 5:00pm, Stop War Coalition – Vancouver Coalition for Justice and Peace will gather in front of the US Consulate, on the traditional, unceded, occupied territories of the səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations to host an emergency rally denouncing the US bombing of Syria as well as Canada’s “full support” to Trump’s open ended escalation.

April 7, 2017

The US bombing of Syria is a war crime and the Trudeau government's support for it makes Canada complicit in these illegal and bloody actions. Rallies and pickets are taking place across Canada over the next few days:

April 6, 2017

This week (April 3-7), the University of British Columbia (UBC) is faced with an important referendum for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS). Proposed by the UBC chapter of the social justice group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), BDS is a call by Palestinian activists for justice and equality. BDS recognizes that Palestinians currently live under an apartheid regime imposed by Israel. Israel is occupying Palestinian land and denying the right of return, a fundamental human right, to Palestinians. The call for BDS is a call to end 70 years of oppression.

March 16, 2017

Rebel Youth presents a translation of a speech by Marianne Breton Fontaine on behalf of Young Communist League of Quebec (LJC-Q) on March 8th, International Women's Day, at a march in Montreal organized by Women of Diverse Origins.

Hello everyone,

As a comrade told me, there is not a single struggle, not a single social advance that has been won without the sacrifice and work of women. Yet they are constantly trying to erase us from history, to erase and ignore our demands, and to tell us to be patient.

In 1917, International Women’s Day in Russia helped to launch the Russian Revolution, which ended up inspiring working people around the world, including many working women in Canada.

The Communist Party of Canada (CPC) was founded in 1921 in Canada, in a barn in Guelph, Ontario under conditions of illegality. The Young Communist League of Canada was founded soon after in 1923. In this article Rebel Youth takes a look at some of the women that led the major struggles of their day and continue to inspire the struggle for full gender equality and for socialism.

March 7, 2017

Nearly forty members and close friends of the YCL-LJC from all over Alberta and British Columbia united for the holiday weekend of February 18, 2017. The unceded territories of the Syilx people in Kelowna served as a scenic backdrop for important discussions between comrades in preparation for the 27th Central Convention of the Young Communist League-Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Canada (YCL-LJC) in May. The purpose of the Kelowna retreat was to allow comrades in Western Canada the opportunity to create bonds, to participate in educational sessions, and to be familiarized with, discuss, and to expand upon the political line of the YCL-LJC.